Knitting, Biking and Some Sober Second Thoughts

Is This Blog Ever Going to Have Anything about Biking on it?

Ummm, hopefully? My fault for starting it in January I guess. A couple of year ago, I did bike most of the winter, but only to places I had to go not weekend trips to interesting places in the city. This year it’s been warm enough to probably make a go of it again, but I haven’t really had many places to go within biking distance (work is walkable; my weekly ultimate game is too far).

Also I really need to get my bike in for a tune-up, particularly new tires as the treads on mine are gone. But there doesn’t seem to be much point until after the cold goes away. I only got the bike 2.5 years ago and I think I’ve managed to keep it in pretty good shape myself using bicycletutor.com but at some point it really needs a professional to look at it and make sure the brake cables aren’t about to snap or something.

But so my one biking story from this winter is that a couple of weeks ago, I got all bundled up, pumped up my tires and headed to my dentist appointment downtown. It was just below freezing when I left, but dropping rapidly, close to -10°C by the time I was finished and had to head into work. My dentist is in a pretty big office building and I was taking the elevator down after my appointment and a guy got on and saw my helmet. He asked how the winter biking was going. I told him today was a bit cool, but not bad. He said that was his brother’s opinion as well, and that it hadn’t been that snowy/icy this year, which is indeed much more of a concern than the cold. Why you need multiple people’s opinions on the biking conditions when you could just stick your head out the door and check the weather, I’m not sure, but it’s always nice when people are interested and not (a) shocked you bike in winter or (b) complaining about crazy/self-righteous cyclists. And if there’s any way to stop Canadians from talking about the weather, I haven’t found it yet.

Also, my appointment was at 11 and I had to walk past 3 or 4 bike posts that already had bikes on them so either there are a lot of abandoned bikes in that area, or biking is really becoming more popular this winter.

Also also, there is a Bulk Barn on the ground floor of my dentist’s building. Yes, a Bulk Barn in the city. Within biking distance. This is going to change my life. Come spring it is going to be weekly candy and trail mix bike trips downtown. At least weekly. It’s great that I can go to the dentist, get my teeth cleaned, then buy candy knowing I won’t have to face the consequences until six months later.

Anyway, there are a huge number of bike lanes in this part of Florida (where I’m vacationing for the week). My parents are in one of those weird gated communities and all the roads have bike lanes in both directions in spite of the fact that the roads are not busy at all (unless you count golf carts in the bike lanes). Supposedly there are bikes in the garage, so maybe there will be another bike post about the weirdness of toodling around nearly-abandoned streets. But otherwise, to answer the question in the title, probably no bike-y things until spring this year. Sorry.

A blog about knitting, biking, movies and books although I can’t keep up with new releases and I like to overthink things for a month or seven. I’m also finishing up my PhD but it’s taking a long time, so it’s probably best if we don’t talk about that. Currently living in Toronto.